When I was visiting Colonial Williamsburg they had a medical historian answering questions and the most interesting one to me was "What happened to consumption?

When I was visiting Colonial Williamsburg they had a medical historian answering questions and the most interesting one to me was "What happened to consumption?" The disease "consumption" was very common in colonial times, but was never really a formal disease, just a collection of symptoms. As medical science got better it got split into emphysema, pneumonia, and other more specific lung issues. When I hear about things like Lymes disease, I wonder if we're still at the splitting apart to a more specific diagnoses stage. One of my friends was basically living this scenario - diagnosed with Lymes disease until he had some new genetic tests done and it was determined that he conclusively had a different neurological condition. It's hard to remember that in 50 years time they'll look back at shudder at what poor diagnostic and medical tools were available in the 2010s.